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Wednesday, 9 July 2014

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

Albert Einstein
Sometimes I really wish everything happened all at once, though. I think I'd get more done. At the moment I'm working on a novel that's really important to me, but progress is slow for a few reasons. The main one right now is I've had a flare-up of an old RSI/muscle/nerve problem in my right arm. I've been favouring my left arm for years because of this problem, so I'm now having similar problems there too. So doing stuff is painful for me. Like, any stuff. Carrying a bag of shopping. Waving at someone. Typing. You know, all the stuff. So I'm trying to limit my writing for a while until the flare-up...flares down.

And this is SO FRUSTRATING because I've just settled into the rhythm of the book. I know what happens next, I know where I'm going, I know where the characters are going, and I just can't physically do as much as I want. Voice recognition software isn't an option, so I'm basically lucky to be writing 1k a week at the moment. Hopefully this will change soon.

The other reasons for having a lack of time are nicer. Common Brimstone remains busy, and as well as being in the midst of developing several new perfumes for my general catalogue, I'm working on a new line for my Raw Brimstone range, which I'm really excited about. Business has been good enough that I've been able to invest in some really spectacular essential oils and absolutes, which means I'm getting to try some beautiful all-natural combinations out.

I'm also working on a Sekrit Project code-named Project Bashful which I hope to be able to talk about in the near future, but that's on a back-burner at the moment because, well, everything else. It's a non-essential thing right now, so it's getting shoved down the to-do list. But I'm excited about it and I want to find more time for it as soon as I can.

And I'm also working on a giveaway for THE BEAST OF BIRCH HILL's release, but luckily this is something I can do without using my arms very much.

But really, it's the writing I want time for at the moment. This book, these characters, this idea...It's all so big and vivid and important, and there's never enough time to get as far as I want, as fast as I want. I think I've pretty much accepted that my days of writing 5k+ in a single session are gone, and that even my days of writing 2k a day, every day, are almost certainly gone. But 1k a week? That's just crap.

So what do you do? I can't fix my arms except by not using them, and I can't not use them. For one thing, my day-job is almost entirely computer-orientated. I can pick and choose certain activities though: I'm trying to stay off the computer more in the weekday evenings (counter-productive to writing, I know, but hopefully if I rest my arms more in the week, I can write more at the weekends). I'm trying to do little bursts of writing throughout the day when I do write, rather than settling in for one marathon session. If the pain persists, I guess I'll speak to my GP but I already know we're tried everything short of amputation :/

So I'm caught in this place where I'm doing everything slowly but I have no time to do it in. I guess this is some weird version of the Red Queen's race.